Developmentally disabled adults often abused and ignored

Sunday

Sep 6, 2015 at 12:01 AMSep 6, 2015 at 10:10 AM

A four-month investigation by The Dispatch found a reporting system in Ohio in which victims often fall through the cracks and don't get help, and perpetrators go unpunished. The disabled can be easy prey. Many don't even know what sex is, much less understand that what was done to them was wrong. Others have difficulty communicating what happened to them or are afraid to tell because their attackers are frequently family members and caregivers whom they rely on for their daily care.

ZANESVILLE, Ohio - The red-brick house with an inviting front porch is the home Mary always wanted.

The petite, 33-year-old developmentally disabled woman feels safe in the home she now shares with other disabled women.

But she remains haunted by sexual abuse she suffered as a child. Mary said she was 5 when her father first raped her.

The attacks made her "nervous" and "scared," and eventually she told her mother. But her mother had her own problems and didn't help. Things just got worse.

"My mom sell me for drugs," Mary recalled, her lip quivering and eyes swelling with tears before she buried her face in her hands.

Only a few people knew about the horror she endured.

But recently, during a sexuality-and-abuse-awareness class with dozens of other disabled adults, Mary mustered her courage and shot up her hand. The time had come to let go of her secret.

Sobbing, she told the instructor, "I want to tell you my story."

Mary's story, unfortunately, is all too common among some of Ohio's most vulnerable residents: developmentally and physically disabled children and adults.

A four-month investigation by The Dispatch found a reporting system in Ohio in which victims often fall through the cracks and don't get help, and perpetrators go unpunished.

The disabled can be easy prey. Many don't even know what sex is, much less understand that what was done to them was wrong. Others have difficulty communicating what happened to them or are afraid to tell because their attackers are frequently family members and caregivers whom they rely on for their daily care.

Disabled victims in this story are identified by first or middle names only because The Dispatch generally doesn't indentify victims of sexual assault.

The numbers are daunting.

• Seven of 10 Americans with developmental disabilities say they have been physically and sexually assaulted, neglected or abused in some other way, and 90 percent of those reported multiple occurrences. Those figures come from a 2012 national survey by the Disability and Abuse Project, an organization that studies and reports assaults and abuse of the disabled. The survey, responded to by 7,289 people, is one of the few to quantify the problem. It found that less than 40 percent reported abuse to authorities, and those who reported it saw an arrest rate of less than 10 percent.

• In Ohio, a state reporting system for the developmentally disabled received 2,043 reports of sexual abuse from 2009 to 2014, but fewer than 1 in 4 was substantiated. An additional 8,610 reports of physical abuse were received, with a slightly higher 27 percent substantiated by the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities.

• In May, the U.S. Department of Justice reported 1.3 million violent crimes against persons with disabilities in the U.S. from 2009 to 2013. Disabled women and men are three times as likely to be raped or sexually assaulted as the general population. Younger people and those with the most severe cognitive disabilities face the highest risk.

While those statistics are appalling, national experts and advocates working day to day with the disabled say the figures are vastly understated, because most instances of abuse are never reported.

"Often, they suffer in silence, as their cries for help are ignored and not recognized as a significant problem. Nationwide, there is a cascade of system failures that cause the lack of effective response to their abuse," said Nora Baladerian, a national expert who is director of the Disability and Abuse Project of Spectrum Institute in Los Angeles.

Baladerian calls violent physical and sexual abuse "a significant and pervasive aspect of the lives" of disabled adults and children.

Vada Snowberger, who manages the Zanesville home where Mary lives, said reported incidents of abuse are "really the tip of the iceberg. ... You can assume the majority of our folks have been abused."

When the disabled talk about being abused - if they are verbal and can complain - they often are not believed; their complaint goes unreported by a parent, guardian, caregiver or agency; or it never makes it to the county board of developmental disabilities, the first line of defense.

If the board does get the case, a county investigative agent decides whether the allegations should be pursued and referred to the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities. Law-enforcement agencies and prosecutors, typically unprepared to deal with disabled victims, might not pursue charges against the perpetrator. Therapy for victims and family members is rarely offered.

Vulnerable and isolated

Laura, 27, a Delaware woman with developmental disabilities and mental-health issues, said her "really bad life" began when she was raped and abused by an older cousin and other boys when she was 5.

Like many with disabilities, Laura never told her story publicly, only to her parents. But they did nothing, Laura said. She received no medical care. There was no police report or investigation, and no one went to jail. Almost no one even knew.

She remembers being at her aunt's house playing "truth or dare" with her cousin and two other boys. "They told me to take down my pants."

Laura was raped by her cousin and the other boys "one right after the other. I didn't know what was going on."

Laura's father found her with her pants down and, though she was bleeding from her vagina, she said he took her home instead of to a doctor. Later, an uncle promised her a children's book if she performed oral sex, Laura said. She ended up in a foster home where her foster father choked her in a bathtub when she didn't clean the bathroom to suit him.

Today, wherever Laura goes, Yellow Lion - a stuffed animal in a purple dress with a jellybean nose - goes with her as comfort and security blanket. "She's the reason why I'm still here to this day," she said. "She's my friend. When I was growing up, I didn't have a friend."

Sexual abuse was the subject of a report in April by Disability Rights Ohio, an independent organization that was formerly a state agency that advocates for the disabled.

Ohio has "inadequate research and no statewide coordinated effort across all involved groups," the report said. "It is critical for Ohio to address the void between the anecdotal stories of abuse and the statistics that indicate the wider failure to prevent and prosecute these crimes."

The report said that developmentally disabled people are at greater risk of sexual abuse because they are frequently dependent on others, such as caretakers, drivers and therapists, in day-to-day activities; are isolated from the larger community; and lack the education about how to identify abuse and report it.

Kristen Henry, an attorney with Disability Rights, says the disabled should be taught "that they can say no, that you should report it, that it's wrong for someone to do this to you. ... I think as a society, people don't think of people with disabilities as real, adult human beings who have bodies that work the same way as our bodies and that they have the same needs and the same wants as other people."

Nancy Smith, a Reynoldsburg woman who is head of victimization safety for the Vera Institute, a national organization focusing on justice and safety issues, said there's a lack of awareness about the disabled.

"In society in general, people with disabilities tend to be invisible," Smith said. "There's been a lot of work for more integration of people with disabilities into society, but you still see social segregation.

"It's hard for us to conjure up in our minds they could be victimized. ... We don't see them as sexual beings. But when we don't tell this information, they sometimes don't even know the names of their own body parts. They know it wasn't feeling good, but they didn't know to name it as abuse."

Advocate for victims

Sadie Hunter, executive director of People First Ohio, is a relentless advocate for the disabled and of education to help prevent sexual abuse. Working with a shoestring budget, Hunter's nonprofit group, based in Delaware, Ohio, leads education and training classes around the state. In these sessions, scores of people - including Mary - realize, perhaps for the first time, that they have been assaulted, they can say no and speak up about it.

"We know it's rampant," Hunter said. "My No. 1 thing is to get them some help. If they've lived this long with all this inside their little hearts, it's got to hurt them. A lot say they are just scared they are going to be hurt again."

Hunter said she once had a training class of 50 people and only one had not been abused.

During a recent session at the Muskingum Starlight Industries Adult Services & Workshop in Zanesville, Hunter led 70 adults with developmental disabilities through a manual explaining how to recognize and report abuse.

Some cried as Hunter described, using simple words and pictures, what abuse is. Others asked for her microphone so they could share their stories. A few just wanted to be hugged. Some asked what sex is and if it hurts. One man said his mother told him she'd kill him if he ever had sex.

"Nobody should touch your body unless you want them to," Hunter said. "Is it OK to have sex if you're an adult? Heck yeah. We're all sexual human beings."

Lifelong pain

Abuse often has long-term repercussions for victims, causing physical and emotional pain and leading some to hurt others.

Frank, 39, a Columbus native who lives in Knox County, was repeatedly raped as a child. When he grew up, he became the abuser he feared as a child.

At age 12, his parents sent their developmentally disabled son to live with an older couple where he slept on a couch in the living room. One night, the man came to the couch and raped Frank. Later, the wife began molesting him, too. It went on for weeks.

"I tried to tell my parents about being sexually abused, but they didn't want to listen," Frank said. "They figured I was lying."

After rejoining his family, Frank said he started "doing the same thing to other kids that happened to me." As a result, he ended up serving time in both juvenile and adult prisons, where he was again victimized.

The attacks on the couch haunt him decades later.

"I have nightmares about it. I don't like darkness. I've got to have a nightlight on."

Baladerian and other experts say that because there's so little awareness of the problem, victims rarely get the help they need to heal.

"There are scattered efforts around the country to fill in some of these gaps," Baladerian said. "But there is no state that I am aware of that has a robust program to address the myriad problems that would protect their citizens from abuse and efficiently provide protection and psychological support in the aftermath."

Mary says she has forgiven her parents, both now deceased, and hasn't let the abuse define her life. The roommates she proudly introduces as her best friends are her family now. She eagerly goes to work each morning at a sheltered workshop, volunteers at a nursing home where she likes to paint residents' nails, and goes to church on Sundays.

She said she shared her story in the hope that it will help others avoid being abused.

"My dad touched where I didn't want to be touched," Mary said. "I didn't appreciate it, and I don't want it to happen to other people."

ajohnson@dispatch.com

@ohioaj

ccandisky@dispatch.com

@ccandisky

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